


Fair

by red_b_rackham



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: F/M, Romance-ish, Stream of Consciousness-ish, angst-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 20:26:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_b_rackham/pseuds/red_b_rackham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't fair, really. She could read people like a book. She was trained to. Except him. Mal/Inara, Oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fair

**Author's Note:**

> _(Originally posted on ff.net 5/27/2007)_

It wasn't fair, really.

She could read people like a book. Some people called it a gift, some people called it a lucky guess. Others said she was just observant or intuitive, and others still said it came from her training. She could understand someone's real meaning from the tone of their voice, read the expression in their eyes, decipher every body movement for what they meant as opposed to what they were saying. No one could lie to her, for as hard as they tried to hide the truth, she could tell they were hiding something and their game was up.

Except when it came to him.

He always baffled and perplexed her. She couldn't feel what he was thinking, she couldn't guess his intentions, or know whether or not he was hiding something. Just when she thought she had finally figured him out in some way, he would say or do something to totally contradict what she'd thought.

This, coupled with the fact that he made her go completely weak in the knees, was not a good mix. She saw him and her heart raced. If they touched, even if it was only brushing past one another in the ship's corridors, it was enough to make her stop breathing for an instant in time.

Years of training gave her the discipline to control her emotions almost entirely. She could shut parts of herself off and feel only what she wanted to feel. She could usually present any front that suited the situation. The outside world saw only what she wanted them to see.

Almost.

Except when it came to him.

He could unhinge her with just a few words. The barriers she'd built inside to allow her to shut certain emotions off at will, seemed to break apart and dissolve. She became confused, aggravated, angry and hurt much more easily. Her smiles and laughter, however, often became more genuine as well. There were some people that were privileged to see her real smiles and hear her real laughter, but the majority of people she met saw the trained-to-appear-genuine smiles and the schooled-to-sound-real laughter.

He, was one of the few who could coax the authentic warmth and happiness from her, though she wasn't sure he knew that.

In fact, she doubted he would ever know about how she felt around him. About him. Unless he showed her he felt the same way, she couldn't take the chance. She wouldn't take the risk. Once or twice she'd thought she finally seen into his eyes, and had seen her feelings reciprocated to some degree back at her. But either she'd been lying to herself and imaging there was something else there or he couldn't take the risk to tell her how he felt either.

It really wasn't fair.


End file.
